Merged Topic - Historical Reliability of the Gospels

[reasonist]

Ask for impartial evidence, get Bible quotes.

Hey, come on! If Jesus said so, it must be true! 

[Randy Carson]

Ask for impartial evidence, get Bible quotes.

Where else do you expect to get quotes from Jesus?

There were numerous eyewitnesses to what Jesus said and did. They wrote down what they saw and heard. These books were compiled into what is known as the NT.

Doesn't make them unreliable.

[Randy Carson]

Hey, come on! If Jesus said so, it must be true!

That's not the argument being made.

[Blackleaf]

Hey, come on! If Jesus said so, it must be true! 

You mean if someone said that Jesus' disciples said that Jesus said so. Tertiary sources are the best things to base all your life decisions on.

[Randy Carson]

You mean if someone said that Jesus' disciples said that Jesus said so. Tertiary sources are the best things to base all your life decisions on.

Most of life is like that. Most of our knowledge comes to us like that.

Ever been to Beijing? The back side of the moon? If not, how do you know what they are like?

Because reliable people can be trusted to tell us things that we cannot verify for ourselves. Oh, sure...you COULD go to the moon...it's possible...but you won't. So, you rely on others who have seen it and taken photographs to know what it looks like.

And you rely on them to be honest and not produce photoshopped pictures, so that's no out.

Reliable men tell us what they know to be true, and we can accept their testimonies. This is a basic philosophical truth.

[Randy Carson]

I don't believe that Ent wives ever existed in human history. Your logic is broken.

Sucks when you get backed into a corner like that, don't it?

[reasonist]

That's not the argument being made.

That's EXACTLY the argument you make!

[Randy Carson]

I don't care if he actually existed or not. The miracles attributed to him cannot be validated. Either he was a complete fiction or he was a real person that people transformed into a diety with their stories.

Are those ALL the possibilities? Nope.

It's also possible that Jesus existed AND performed all those miracles AND rose from the dead.

You intentionally leave out some possibilities because of your presuppositions. That's not how objective science is done, is it?

The same is true of Muhammed. Did he exist? I don't care. If he did exist, did ALL of the world stop to look in his direction when he was born? No.

Fine. You have objections to the foundation of Islam. So do I. Muslims need to prove that this actually occurred before we will believe it.

In the case of Christianity, there are five facts which need to be addressed:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion
2. Jesus' disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them
3. Saul, the persecutor of the Church, was suddenly changed
4. James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed
5. Jesus tomb was found to be empty

How do you account for these facts?

[Randy Carson]

Fascinating! Sigfried would have a hay day. The depth of indoctrination for some is astonishing. That many need an emotional crutch and turn to religious superstition is one thing, but to come to an atheist forum and try to proselytize is a complete different animal. Presenting nothing but the same old fables and mythologies as facts here is a hopeless undertaking.
We have to ask ourselves why this poor, needy soul posts here. It's either to try and convert others or to provoke. Neither works here.
The resident sheep is trying to convince us that claims of miracles from UNKNOWN sources are proven facts. OK, then. I give him that for a moment. All the texts of the Torah and the NT, are true facts through eyewitness accounts (I can't believe I am even contemplating that)!
That means the following:
A) The god in the Torah is a capricious monster on a permanent killing spree. According to the Jewish bible, god killed over 2 million people before wiping out every living thing on Earth. Satan killed 10.

Now what kind of a sick mind would grovel and submit himself to serfdom to a mass murderer like that? What must go on in someone's mind to stoop to such low? What a miserable existence must one live, in order to relinquish any rational judgement and ignore morality and ethics? What a pathetic way to waste a life! To enjoy and admire a celestial North Korea and to give up independent thought for dogma is the very definition of being spiritually and mentally enslaved.
I don't feel resentment towards people like that, just pity. Pity for losing out on the fascinating subject how the universe actually works, without heavenly creation or interference. Pity for being so caught up in a fictional reality, that reason and logic falls by the wayside. I wish there would be an indoctrination detox center, where the most ardent sheep can be sent to lose their toxic beliefs. But we have to co-exist with these backward minds and fight them every step of the way in order not to be taken over. That goes for Islam as well. And fight we will...until superstition is replaced with compassion, empathy and love for our fellow brothers and sisters, regardless of color, creed or tribe.

Whether God is an immoral monster is a challenging question. But not the topic of this thread.

[Randy Carson]

That's EXACTLY the argument you make!

Nope. We don't have any testimony directly from Jesus. He wrote nothing and left no artifacts. Not even his bones.

What we DO have is the testimony of others who claimed that they saw Him. So, it's about whether what THEY said is true, not about what He said.

[Blackleaf]

Most of life is like that. Most of our knowledge comes to us like that.

Ever been to Beijing? The back side of the moon? If not, how do you know what they are like?

Because reliable people can be trusted to tell us things that we cannot verify for ourselves. Oh, sure...you COULD go to the moon...it's possible...but you won't. So, you rely on others who have seen it and taken photographs to know what it looks like.

And you rely on them to be honest and not produce photoshopped pictures, so that's no out.

Reliable men tell us what they know to be true, and we can accept their testimonies. This is a basic philosophical truth.

When it comes to trustworthiness, primary sources > secondary sources > tertiary sources. What you offer is a tertiary source at best. It's a copy of a copy of a book that is claimed to have originally been written by Jesus' followers and eyewitnesses who claim to report what Jesus said. That's not a trustworthy source. All you have to do to tell this is compare the four gospels. They contradict each other, which should tell you that if there was an original event that they were based on, the true events were not reliably reported or the copies changes details of it. The infallible Word of God is incredibly flawed.

[Mike Cl]

Don't play games. You made a positive statement and the burden of proof is on you. That's how debate works.

Otherwise, all you have is an opinion which you are asserting.

I see that you do understand the sane rules of the game.  But you don't play by them.  You say your god exists.  You say Jesus is the son of god.  Yet you feel you don't have to prove it.  It is simply self evident to you.  As you said--all you have is an opinion.  I guess you feel that badgering a person, nagging them, hounding them gets them (or at least some of them) to believe as you do.  If you say it enough then it has to be true.  Typical of your ilk.  Doesn't work on me; once I get the sense that you are simply full of hot air and opinion, I simply become more ensconced in my position.

As far as nothing being supernatural, this is how it works.  All that I can see, touch, feel, smell, experience is based in nature.  The entire universe is natural.  In order for something to be supernatural, it has to be not of nature.  The is nothing that is not of nature.  Yes, people have claimed that there is the spiritual realm and that they have had spiritual experiences.  Good for them.  But those are all personal happenings, and they cannot reproduce it.  And the skeptical Randy will pay you a million dollars if you can prove there is anything supernatural in this universe.

[Mike Cl]

Sucks when you get backed into a corner like that, don't it?

Yes Randy, you should know.  You live in a perpetual corner always running out the same old tired bromides, same old opinions foisted on us as facts---time and again as though saying it enough somehow validates your thoughts.  Yes, it is a pity.   

[reasonist]

Whether God is an immoral monster is a challenging question. But not the topic of this thread.

Nice try and avoidance, but no dice. I gave you the position that the NT and Torah is the true word of god, which is exactly the topic here. And if it is true, then you enslaved yourself to a monstrous killer, capiche? Or is that too complicated for you?

[reasonist]

Nope. We don't have any testimony directly from Jesus. He wrote nothing and left no artifacts. Not even his bones.

What we DO have is the testimony of others who claimed that they saw Him. So, it's about whether what THEY said is true, not about what He said.

Aaaand wrong again! You are saying that there are no quotes of a Jesus in the NT? You just dug yourself a bigger hole.
So there are a few bronze age simpletons who 'claim that they saw him'. We went through that. So what? I saw my brother yesterday, that doesn't make him a god. It only starts to get absurd when the miraculous and supernatural enters the picture.
keep wiggling...